Blind man excels at videogames

A blind man has stunned the gaming community by flawlessly churning through levels relying solely on sound effects. 23-year-old Colorado student Terry Garrett has beaten 2D platformer Abe's Exoddus several times despite his visual impairment. In an interview with Oddworld, Garrett said he followed sounds and memorised the …

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome

Yeah, is there such a thing as a "genuinely awesome dude" award? If not, there should be!

Pint for him.

[Anonymous John]

Pinball Wizard

"That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball",

[Evil Auditor]

An award?

Maybe. Even better someone develops a game which purely relies on sound! Would also be interesting for the visually not impaired.

[LuMan]

Bop-It!

How about Bop-It! That relies on sound and is nothing short of brilliant.

A mega pint for this guy - Totally awesome and a real inspiration to everyone!!

[Originone]

There are no new ideas.

http://www.papasangre.com/

No video only sound effects. I havn't played it but the concept is very cool.

[Wommit]

The Who

Tommy

[lansalot]

what?

An award? Give him a pinball machine - let's see how that pans out! ;-)

[Chris Waring]

This guy should try his hand at

Pinball ;-)

Maybe someone will write a musical about him.

[Captain Hogwash]

Can he...

...play pinball?

[Anonymous Coward]

A title is required.

Wow! Nuff said.

[Paul Dx]

Tommy

But can he play pinball ?

[Leona A]

Pinball Wizard!

Springs to mind.

Goes to prove, no matter what your disability, you can do anything you put your mind to. He isn't super human, just super determined, there are a lot of 'able bodied' people that could learn at lot from this, rather than sitting around saying 'oh wow is me!'

Good on him, wish him well finding work, sadly there is still a lot of prejudice our there, despite achievements.

[Paul_Murphy]

s/wow/woe/

Unless they are also claiming to be awesome I guess, but I guess that was not your point :-)

ttfn

[Lottie]

Dictionary

I'm sure in the dictionary, this guys picture is next to "Awesome".

[Anonymous Coward]

Tagline

Surely "he's the real pinball wizard" is more appropriate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats

On being the first to break the tape during the Pinball race. The 10 or so other commentards below must be feeling sheepish.

Or if I can quote Nelson: "Ha, ha!"

[nobby]

cue descending chords

But....

can he play pinball?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow....

....life copying art. Are the Who going to do a new soundtrack to a game for him?

[Loyal Commenter]

Something something...

...pinball

What, I'm not the first? Whodathunkit?

[James Pickett]

Rock opera

Where's the Acid Queen when you need her? :-)

He's not deaf, dumb and blind, though, is he..?

[Graham Bartlett]

In other news, Chuck Norris

... was reported to have said he's a bit worried about this guy. Apparently his guide-dog can roundhouse kick you through a wall too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually

Actually I did see a while ago in an issue of Linux Format that someone had developed a game set in the dark, pitch dark - where only sounds were given as feedback...

[Goat Jam]

Yeah

That was called Doom 3. Great tech, mediocre game tho.

Yes, I'm leaving now . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Credible.

There was a meme a few years back with people trying to play through the Thief series of games with no monitor.

[Pirate Dave]

Ah

the Force is strong in this one.

Karate too? He must have ears like a bat...

[juice]

Sound-based games

All credit to the guy - he's obviously got sharp ears and a good memory.

If anyone's interested, there are a few Indie games on the Xbox 360 where the only feedback is audio

(minor disclaimer; the following link to my website/reviews of said games):

In The Pit - http://www.xboxindiegames.co.uk/review.html?reviewee=inthepit

Walketh - http://www.xboxindiegames.co.uk/review.html?reviewee=walketh

There's also a few which take it the other way by "simulating" sonar:

BlindGiRl - http://www.xboxindiegames.co.uk/review.html?reviewee=blindgirl

CRON - http://www.xboxindiegames.co.uk/review.html?reviewee=cron

And on a related note, there's also the "one switch" initiative, which attempts to produce games which can be played with just a single button:

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/

[Graham Marsden]

Anyone remember the old Dragon's Lair video disk game?

Not to denigrate this guy's achievement at all, but the moves on DL were a fixed sequence such that I could stand with my back to the machine, hands behind me and all I'd need was for someone to say "Ok, it's the Lizard King starting to the left" and I could go through the whole level without looking :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

a touch of blindsight seems likely

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight>

[Richard Jukes]

wow

Just as I gain confidence in myself and start to think that I havent done so bad, along comes a blind kid whos; better at video games than me, better at fighting than me, better at playing the guitar than me and not to mention the chap is studying for an aerospace engineering course. I bet he's got a hotter misses than me too, and that is just wasted on him!

It makes me feel very inadequate! Imagine what the kid could do if he could see...

Kudos to him, and in all fairness he should make the rest of us feel ashamed for not embracing life to the uptmost!